


Coming Home to Roost

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Reunions, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 22:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: According to Yusei, just minutes before Rex Godwin passed into the afterlife, he told Yusei one thing--"about the Legendary D-Wheeler...I lied.  I wasn't her.  I just stole her story.  Let Crow know the truth, will you?"Now standing in front of an old mechanic shop with an address scrunched in his hand, Crow finds himself wondering who exactly he is going to meet on the other side of the door--and if she's going to want anything to do with him.





	Coming Home to Roost

Crow held onto the tiny slip of paper so tightly that he was almost putting his fingers through it, hands shaking. He felt Yusei's hand slip onto his shoulder and squeeze lightly, and even Jack put his hand lightly on his back, but it didn't do anything for the shake in his body.

He stared up at the beaten down sign that said “Falcon Mechanics,” and tried to consider getting up the strength to walk inside.

“What if I'm wrong?” he mumbled. “What if—what if _he_ was lying?”

“He wasn't,” Yusei said softly. And he had been the last and only person to talk to Rex Godwin before he vanished into the nether of the afterlife, so Crow just had to trust him. “Believe me, Crow...he wasn't. He was trying to make things just a little bit right at the end.”

Crow swallowed.

“What if she's not here anymore, though?” he said. “What if she never really was, or she left right after he knew she was here, or—what if she doesn't...want to see me.”

It was the last one that was the scariest possibility, and one that he hadn't wanted to voice until now. Yusei opened his mouth to speak again, but Crow talked over him.

“Look at me,” Crow hissed. “I'm eighteen and covered in scars and I have criminal markers all over my face—people still cross to the other side of the street sometimes when I walk past them.”

“Crow...” Yusei said.

“I'm a mess,” Crow kept talking. “I don't have a job, I just got the fuck out of Satellite—why the hell would she want to see me?? I'm probably a disappointment—”

Jack elbowed him very hard under the ribs, driving the air out of him.

“What the _fuck_ , Jack,” Crow said, once he had gotten some of his air back.

Jack just curled his lip at him.

“Will you shut up, and just go in?” he said. “You've already imagined the worst possible scenario—so nothing else can surprise you, right?”

“You—”

Yusei grabbed Crow's hand, and Crow turned towards him. Yusei smiled at him in that quiet, gentle way of his. He squeezed Crow's hand between both of his.

“You still have a family, one way or the other,” he said. “We'll always be here. Martha will always be there. The kids will be waiting for you.”

He smiled again.

“This is just a chance for you to see if your family gets one person bigger.”

Crow swallowed. He grimaced as he put one hand over his face.

“Fuck,” he said. “How do you always know just what to say?”

“Lucky,” Yusei said with a soft laugh. He squeezed Crow's hand one more time, and patted him on the back. “Go on.”

Crow licked his dry lips. He had the address crumpled in one fist. He swallowed thickly one more time as his brain gave him one last run-around on all the possible bad things that could happen when he walked through that door.

Then he steeled himself, and he pushed through.

The door was unlocked, despite the closed sign on the front. That had been another thing he had been worried about—why was he coming before they were open? It was almost noon, though, so he wasn't sure why it wouldn't be open by now...mistake, maybe? Someone had forgotten to flip the sign around?

It was dark inside as the bells from the opening door faded into the recesses of the shop, but he was immediately hit with the heavy, family scent of mechanical oil, metal, and dust, and he had to stop for a moment to breathe in. Ahh. Yeah, that was the smell that he loved the best—it made him think of home. It was a friendly, welcoming sort of smell.

Parts were scattered over shelves, a couple of gutted motorcycles without wheels were sitting on stands off in the open space beside the counter. The counter held only a beaten up cash register and a notepad beside it, presumably for signing in. There was a small doorway without a door behind the counter, and a shelf next to it with bottles of oil and cleaning fluid thrown across it, some of them on their sides.

Crow wasn't sure if he should...say something? Was anyone even here?

“Didn't you see the sign?” a rough, dusty voice rose up from the back all at once, making Crow jump. “We're closed. Idiot.”

Crow almost withered and bolted right then. Fuck fuck fuck, he had known this was a bad idea...

But the paper in his hand crinkled, and he swallowed. No—he...he had to know. He had to just know.

“Is...” he started. He cleared his throat. He wasn't even sure where she was. “Are you...the legendary D-Wheeler?”

The silence itself seemed to draw back for a moment. Then from behind the counter, a woman stood up from where she had apparently been crouching down to rub at a stain on the floor, as she tossed the rag back over her shoulder, her back to him.

“Who's asking?”

Crow sucked in a breath. Her hair was the same color as his. It was a bit ratty and dusty, with a streak or two of oil in it beside the streak or two of gray, pulled around over one shoulder into a side ponytail. But even in the dark, he could tell—she had the same dark orange color that he did.

He almost choked on his words for a moment. He covered his mouth, trying to recompose himself.

“I...my name is...C-Crow. C-Crow...Hogan...”

She whipped around so fast that the rag fell off of her shoulder, her hand pressing onto the counter. Her eyes were a bright hazel brown, wide as she looked him up and down. She had a round, squat sort of face that seemed to be pushed in on the nose, her bangs cut haphazardly over her forehead so that it was clear she had done it herself. One of her arms was just gone—bound up with ace bandaging over the stump that jutted out only about five inches from her shoulder. She had...lost a lot more of her arm than Rex had...when he had pretended to be the one who had gone through the whole accident in the first place.

She pressed her hand to her mouth, and her eyes filled up with tears, and Crow felt something break.

“Oh my god,” she mumbled through her fingers. “You look just like him.”

His knees almost gave out underneath him, and then she was literally vaulting over the counter and bolting the last few feet to Crow, throwing her arm around his shoulders. It took only seconds for both of them to collapse to the floor.

“It's you, right?” she said, half sobbing. “My god, you look just—you look just like your papa, you've got his eyes—”

She cupped his face with her hand, tilting him towards her, making him look back and forth a little. She laughed in between her sobs.

“You've gotten yourself into a spot of trouble, haven't you?” she choked as she ran her thumb down one of his markers. “He'd've been so worried—”

“Is...you're really...” Crow started, mumbling.

“I looked for you for so long—” she gasped. “It's you, right? It's really you? You're my Crow?”

He couldn't see for the tears in his eyes and he put one hand on top of hers on his cheek.

“Y-yeah,” he choked. “I-it's me...I-I have t-the card that dad l-left—”

He fumbled into his vest pocket and took out the shiny synchro monster. She extracted her only hand from him and took it gingerly, hands shaking. Her eyes bubbled with more tears, and she closed them again.

“He's gone, isn't he?” she mumbled.

Crow nodded dumbly.

“W-what happened to you...?” she mumbled. She gave him his card back so she could cup his face again. “I looked everywhere...”

Crow swallowed.

“Uh—t-the woman that took care of me, Martha, s-she said she found me in the wreckage,” he said. “S-she...she said uh...m-my dad was crouched over me...h-he was already gone...I'm sorry...”

She immediately threw one arm around his shoulders again, pressing her against him.

“Oh god, sh, sh, sh,” she said. “You don't have to apologize for anything, baby, it's okay, it wasn't your fault—he'd be so happy that you were okay, that you were still alive—”

He could feel her tears on his shoulder and he was crying too, again, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her tightly.

“I had left for a mechanics job,” she said hollowly, into his shoulder. “I had left for just the day when it happened—it was so bad, the accident was so bad—I managed to avoid getting caught in most of it, but I couldn't tell what streets were what when I tried to find my way back. Then they shut the whole place down for 'quarantine,' and no one could find my husband or my son—”

Crow buried his face against her shoulder and hugged her tighter.

“I started to think—our house had been in the uncertainty zone, the one where no one was sure which side of the gap it had ended up on, so maybe—just maybe—you two had ended up on the other side—”

“And...and you built...the Daedalus Bridge...”

“I fucked it up so bad, you guys weren't over here,” she said. “Oh god...I had given up, I thought you both must be dead—”

Crow couldn't stop crying, he could barely see for it.

“So you're really—you're—”

She choked on her laughing sob and tightened her arm around his shoulders.

“Oh god, I guess I really do need to introduce myself, huh?” she said, with a faint, nervous giggle. “I'm Prinia Hogan, and—and y-yeah. I'm your mom.”

She choked on her tears as she pressed her head to Crow's forehead, and he could only grab at her hand and hold it against his face as the tears streamed down.

"I-I'm home, mom..." he choked out.

"Welcome home, baby," she mumbled back.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was for the prompt Family for ygo5dsmonth; it's p late, and I had planned on doodling something, but instead this came out.
> 
> I miiight make this a longer piece with a few more chapters, but for now, it's staying as a oneshot.


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